He begins his love-making slyly and shamefacedly. George waits after school, occupied with an ostensible engagement which will consume the time until Mary shall appear. His meeting with her, after all these elaborate plans, appears to be quite unexpected. A diffident greeting is followed by an inquiry as to whether she is going home. Her affirmative answer is seized upon as his excuse for walking in her direction. Then follows his request to be permitted to carry her books. They discuss matters of mutual interest in school or social life, while he, with furtive glances, notes the beauty of her face, the wealth of her hair, and the velvet of her cheek. Sunlight is playing hide-and-seek in her eyes, while the roses in her cheeks blush a deeper red, matching the ribbon which adorns her pigtails as she feels the flood of his unexpressed admiration surging over her. Never was there such a wondrous being in all the world! He idealizes her every attribute until she surmounts a pedestal far removed from things earthy. A smile of approval from this young goddess is treasured in his heart of hearts, sacred from the misunderstandings of a profane world. He is assailed by daydreams of knight-errantry in which he is performing some chivalrous act of heroism to which the maiden shall be a witness. Or better still, he imagines himself playing the part of a cavalier rescuing her own sweet self from distress or danger and then receiving as his reward her avowal of affection, while he protests that his heroism is nothing and that he would do a thousand times more for her. Evidences of his tender regard for the girl of his choice are given in secret, as too holy for an unappreciative world to comprehend, and the twittings of his elders on the subject of puppy love (cruel in their unsound psychology) are met with prompt and positive denials. Such manifestations of incipient affection should be recognized as the intermediary elaboration of a high and spiritual love whose ultimate fruition will be matrimony. All the world loves a lover--provided he is not a boy. The adult who cannot see the psychology in such incidents must be blind indeed. The exceptional plasticity of mind characteristic of this age renders him highly susceptible to influences for good or evil. It is the great character-building period of his life in which are crystallized his moral and ethical concepts which attain their latter perfection in the succeeding period. Your boy is putty in your hands. He is a superlative impressionist. His impressionistic mind is molded as deeply by evil as by good. For this reason, it is necessary that his environment--which is the cumulative influence of the precept, example, and conditions which surround him--should be good and wholesome. As the drip-drip-drip of water wears away the stone, so the constant drip of environing influences wears its way into character.